Dying By Seasons
by petvampire
Summary: Post-game. Seifer is a wanted man, dying by seasons until Irvine finds him, and slowly there is life again. Rated for yaoi.
1. Autumn

"You look tense."

His words, smooth and easy and almost mocking. Of _course_ he looked fucking tense; he was a wanted man. Even though the war was over, the hatred of the people for the person who had served as the sorceress' right hand had not diminished.

He said nothing, cyan eyes cold. They usually were.

"I can help you."

There was a hint of an offer in that velvet drawl, the slight twist of a smirk on full lips. The blonde looked at him with surprise. Seifer Almasy was no queer, but the look the other was giving him was undeniably enticing. The sharpshooter couldn't possibly look feminine, all lean, strong angles and a hard curve of jaw, but Seifer might be able to put his prejudices aside.

He was tense, after all.

A hand reached out and curled in that fall of auburn hair, tugging sharply forward until that smirk had come within reach. Lips sealed over the other's without any thought or gentleness, tongue taking possession of that smooth-talking mouth until any trace of that mocking quirk of lips had disappeared.

Irvine hadn't expected the man to actually take him seriously. He had been teasing, as was his wont, pushing at boundaries. Not that he minded the blonde's sudden interest and actions; he had merely never take Seifer for the type to fall for his incessant flirting. Well, the cowboy would take what he could get.

Hands curved acceptingly around the back of the other's neck, body pressing against the other male's willingly as anything. He had never been one to question things, nor to be discriminating.

One the other hand, Seifer never _did_ this. He couldn't even think of the last time he'd gotten this close to someone. Rinoa, it had to have been Rinoa, the bitch who had left him for dead and defected to live in love with his greatest rival, his greatest enemy. The thought gave his kisses a hateful cast, biting at the other's lips, drawing a speck of crimson blood against the smooth skin.

The sniper just sank into him, a sound muffled by the hard press of the blonde's mouth.

Hands were not deft, not practiced as they stripped the cowboy of his clothing, though Seifer dealt with his own a great deal more easily. He had not felt the rise of lust for too long; he had been dying by seasons, alone and in hiding. Fuujin and Raijin had stayed with him only for so long, once the war had ended and they realized the man who had been their friend was diminished, faded. They had gone, like so many others, even if they had never learned to hate him like the rest of the world.

They seemed to be the only ones. Fuujin, Raijin, and Irvine - though he could not fathom why the last did not want him dead.

He thought, as he sank teeth into the firm curve of a shoulder, of how the cowboy had sought him out, had come to find him in the stinking hotel in Dollet where he had been living of late. How he had invited the blonde out as though it were easy as that, had insinuated himself back into Seifer's room. It made no sense. He had been on the opposite side, on the winning side, had fought against the self-proclaimed Sorceress' Knight and beaten him into a pulp. Why was he here now, acting as though they were friends - or something else?

Irvine had always been easy. A loner, a drifter. Why not go against the norm, seek out someone who didn't want company? His tendency to push the limits, to go against orders to do what he thought was right, was what had both honored and alienated him from his counterparts during the war.

Why not.

Seifer had never thought of this, of the rough push of hands against a body distinctly lacking in softness or curves, of Irvine's hasty instructions in a throaty, lusty voice - the cowboy had done this before. The blonde pushed into him, first with fingers, then with his cock, with only the slightest hint of distaste. He had done worse in his time, had killed innocents, had let his mind be controlled because of some damned romantic dream...

The thoughts made him rake his nails down the sharpshooter's spine, and below him Irvine bucked backwards, sounds falling from his lips as easily as his ever-teasing words. Seifer was glad to have him silenced for once, at least of any intelligible vocalizations. He didn't mind the moans.

He had always assumed that if someone was going to be under him like this, it would have been Squall. Not that there had ever been any thoughts of such an encounter entertained in the blonde gunblade-wielder's mind, but it had never been an impossibility, now that he had thought about it. It would not have been for pleasure. To humiliate, to prove that he was superior to the other for once... that would have been all.

This was different.

Irvine whimpered his name as though it were a plea, hips striking backwards with every thrust the blonde made. And thoughtless, Seifer found himself responding, driving with greater force until they were both collapsed on dirty sheets, bodies wrapped together, sweat and other fluids sticking at their skin.

When it was over, the sharpshooter cleaned himself up and left the blonde alone.

His tension had lessened; his loneliness hadn't.


	2. Winter

He left Dollet soon after. Too many memories, too close to Balamb, and too full of hatred for anyone to care about whether or not Seifer was there.

He craved the body that had for a night lain by his side like water or air, like any drug the world had to offer. The severity of the feeling shocked him. The blonde did not need anyone, never had, had assumed he never would. He was a ferociously independent personality, a loose cannon, someone better off on his own. And yet...

Perhaps he wanted not the man himself, but the sensations he had gotten with Irvine there. Life had returned in the time of coldness. And then it had left him again, his bright spark abandoning him.

If he hadn't felt that drive, that thirst, he might have hated the cowboy. His pride was injured, in a way, that he had been left on his own once again. He was used to it, yes, but after Irvine had come to find him...

The blonde followed his instincts. He went first to Timber, then to Galbadia. Deling City, what remained of Galbadia Garden. Nothing. Subtlety did not serve him, and when he eventually broke down and asked after the sniper, no one could lead him to the man. He had disappeared, like Fuujin and Raijin had. He had somehow melted completely off the map.

That was when rage took its hold, the feeling familiar to Seifer, returning to his mind and body like an old friend. Anger and than a stricken pulse of ego; why would the bastard come to find him and then just leave him again? The sharpshooter was fucked-up and twisted, moreso than the blonde he had entertained and then abandoned.

Wrath. It left him sleepless, heartless, driven.

Until the cowboy showed up on the doorstep of the Deling City Hotel and sat down across a lounge table from the blonde, rifle settled across his knees. Violet blue eyes were dark and downcast, and he spoke in an even, passionless tone that was nothing like his usual drawl.

"I was contracted for a hit on you."

The blonde had drawn back, rage finding its way into him as he waited for that damnable gun to be pointed his way, for his life to find it close at the end of Exeter's barrel.

Irvine reached over the rifle, placed both palms on the table, and leaned across to kiss the blonde.

Coldness gave way to warmth.


	3. Spring

They left Deling; it was too close to home for Irvine. Everywhere was too close to something for either of their tastes, and nowhere could the wanderers find a way to settle. They weren't meant to shack up in some little pastoral town and live happily ever after. Two lone wolves weren't meant for companionship, but they couldn't seem to find their way apart, either.

Seifer remembered Irvine flirting their way into a place at the rebuilt Trabia Garden; he'd been cold with anger at the cowboy until the sniper distracted him from his rage as he always did, with smooth words and calloused hands that knew precisely how to make him forget. The blonde couldn't stay angry. The sharpshooter hadn't killed him, after all.

He was still hiring his gun hand out to anyone with a decent enough reason and a deep pocket, and he was gone more often than Seifer liked, even though he wouldn't admit it. He hated thinking he needed someone. But he still craved the man, found him more intoxicating than anything he could find at the bottom of a bottle. Slowly he stopped drinking, stopped dwelling in excess. Irvine was taking the place of his addictions.

That warm body was his, said the possessive side of the blonde's mind; he didn't really need him, said the standoffish part. There were too many thoughts and too much lust and rage and need, and Irvine still was in other beds more often than not. He was free, and easy, and he always had been. Seifer couldn't stand him when he had the marks of others on him.

He wasn't happy, but he couldn't leave him.

Irvine couldn't leave, either. Who else in the world would have left the man alive? Who else would actually give a damn enough to scrape out a place in the godforsaken northern corner of the world to make sure no other hired guns came after him? Maybe the cowboy cared, in his own way. Maybe he wasn't as loose and unattached as he seemed.

Or maybe he was deluding himself and Seifer both.

It was still cold in Trabia, but the world was warming up. They couldn't stay. Irvine hadn't taken the hit, but someone must have. There had been too much money not to. Staying in one place was a danger, and Seifer was starting to hate him, there. Too many people who thought they had a claim; too many people who looked at him with disgust, or with fear.

He wondered if being killed would have been easier.

"You're tense again," said that beautiful killer, another night when they were pretending they could manage to sleep. It wasn't teasing, wasn't sensual, wasn't anything - his face was unguarded. More beautiful, then, than anything Seifer had seen before.

"We're leaving," he said when he was through with that beauty, when they were exhausted and spent against dirty sheets, and Irvine was curled up against him like a lover. There was no protest.

It was still too close for either of them.


	4. Summer

Fingertips touching his hand, the slight press of a shoulder against his. The blatant physicality had faded into something more tender, less obvious. No one saw, and that was what he wanted.

Irvine had never understood how to be connected, to stay in one place, with one person. It was be alone, or flit from bed to bed, girl to boy to girl to boy.

Seifer had never wanted to be tied down, to bend to anyone else's whims. He'd had to give that up, when the Sorceress had controlled him, but he'd gone back to his old ways.

Two bodies intertwined; they didn't part with the morning. They didn't know where they were going, but they had gone. It was enough to be on the move. What was the point in staying in one place when there were hired guns, mercenaries like Irvine? It was easier this way. They didn't need to be found.

Fiends didn't bother them any more, didn't come near, as though they'd heard from their fellows that the two of them brought death to any who'd try. It was almost empty without them, but the summer was still sweet. They survived.

A hand touched his spine, under the heavy stars and moon. Seifer didn't look; he moved without needing to. Lips met lips, and they were languid and unhurried, tongues and bodies tangling together without hunger, without need.

Maybe they had changed. Maybe they were too lost, too scared, to care any more about what had been. Maybe they were living by seasons, one by one, not dying by them.

"I love you," Seifer told him, and Irvine only nodded.

He didn't need to say a word.


End file.
